Today’s big story is that I’ve been shaking hands with the Mayor of Lewisham Sir Steve Bullock.
But don’t believe that I’ve softened, I even have a submitted question in for next Council meeting.
See you there Steve.
I’ve been tagged by Andrew:
List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.
I’m actually quite happy to share what music lives around me these days, interestingly Andrew that tagged me also mentions Curtis Mayfield. He’s evidently in the air. Let’s start with him then.
Curtis Mayfield - People Get Ready
I love this song, this afternoon I was at the playground at Hillyfields with my daughter, there’s a locomotive/climbing frame, I really can’t take it anymore to say choo choo at every reference to a train so I introduced this song to her today. All the other parents there probably thought I was a nutter.
And speaking of nutters here’s another version by Al Green, I love this version, this youtube video is from “the Gospel according to Al Green” a dvd that I’m a proud owner of.
Pino Daniele - Ce sta chi ce penza - A protest song from the alleys of Naples.
Steely Dan - Two Against Nature - there’s only this fragment available online, shall you decide to buy the disc to hear the rest you wouldn’t be wasting your money. Massive.
Nina Simone - Sinnerman - hypnotic.
Paul Simon - Slip Sliding Away, a great poem.
Jaco Pastorius - Ocus Pocus - - Jaco Pastorius debut album is a milestone - I had it on a loop for a few days last week.
Billy Cobham - Stratus - very good for air guitar.
Tagged: Andrew, Kate, Henry, Rob, Helena, Inspector Sands, Clare
What better day to bump into James than on his first day as Member of the London Assembly, a Tory in a Tory administration of London, he was still on a cloud trying to grasp the full extent of what his election entails when I met him yesterday at Marks and Spencers here in Lewisham.
I feel I don’t have anything to add to the comments on this last local elections, the blames, the fortunes or misfortunes of one or the other party, everybody seem to be saying the same thing and they all seem to be pretty spot on but one thing that I’m truly happy that this election brought us is the election of James Cleverly as member of the London Assembly. Having known him for a while I know what a nice guy he is and how seriously he takes politics. The fact that I am not a Tory will tell you how truly heartfelt this congratulation is meant to sound.
Electoral success has been elusive to him until now, but what better way to break the tradition than to get on one of those real jobs that politics offers, helping the new Mayor of London to decide how to work for the good of London. Good on you James.
Also congratulations to our other local boy on the assembly, Darren Johnson has been re-elected as one of two Green Party members, he’ll make sure that the Tory slogans on blue being a new green stands to some scrutiny and if you know Darren you know how much a master of the art of politics he is, he might be in opposition but he surely knows how to put up a fight from there.
There’ll be Johnson vs. Johnson soon at the Town Hall and that will be serious fun.
I just saw this paradoxical report from Afghanistan. There are British troops “patrolling” through poppy fields, chatting with the Taliban busy harvesting. I watched the video report a few times and found it incredible. I don’t know what to think of it, probably the only meaning that I found in it is that things have stopped making sense.
Click on the image to go the relevant BBC page.
…last year Private Eye published this very interesting little report (click on image to enlarge it).
Apparently, only one year later, the Labour Group at Westminster managed to read it.
If yours is a Labour MP do yourself a favor, buy him/her a subscription to Private Eye.
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has accused 112 construction companies of rigging bids for contracts.
It said the firms colluded among themselves while bidding for contracts, leading to customers, such as local authorities, having to pay too much.
The regulator added that in a few cases firms entered into agreements whereby the successful tenderer would pay a sum of money to those that lost out.
It said 40 firms had admitted price fixing, and 37 had asked for leniency.
The cartel practice involved the use of false invoices.
Construction giants Balfour Beatty and Carillion are among those the OFT accuses of taking part… (link)
Earlier I saw on telly a very well groomed man representing the industry, that with exceptional calm and self-confidence explained that the companies paid by us to build our hospitals and schools have not been involved with price-fixing practices to inflate prices but because they didn’t want those jobs and didn’t want to upset their prospective future clients by not bidding, so they were shooting high in the hope that they would not get the job but would still be considered in the future.
I admired the way he kept cool and insisted on that, he’s obviously been coached in keeping a line that beggars belief with a straight face. His coach must have been proud of him.
In spite of this particular kind of admiration that he inspired me, my mind did go to the traditional way that Japanese managers adopt in these cases to safe-guard their honour, self-disembowelment with a traditional sword.
After all, taking money away from hospital budgets means that somebody will not be able to be treated for their conditions and could sometimes even die.
It’s only a few days that here in SE London we’ve been consulted on how much of the local NHS should be dismantled with options of the like of the closure of the local A&E in Lewisham. They are seriously claiming that a borough with a quarter million people can do without an accident and emergency.
This proposal sounds all the more incredible since Lewisham Hospital just opened a very swanky new building, 7 storeys or wavy modern architecture, it came with a £60m price tag and it is such a generous space that one of the floors is completely empty.
Carrillion, the company that built it not just managed to get the usual 30 years contract for the maintenance of the building, but thanks to an innovative deal they also get to supply the Hospital for the next 30 years.
Carrillion is also one of the companies that admitted of price-fixing.
I think that it is reasonable to ask ourselves if the current financial deficit that could lead locally to the loss of critical services could have been generated by this and other recent contracts.
Of course another thing that we must ask ourselves is whether it was wise to spend such vast sum on a building when the Hospital is in such deficit that closure of A&E is one of the options.
I think that now our local politicians should make an effort to bring an investigation over the Hospital deal and see whether there were irregularities at bidding and if that would turn up to be the case, to try to recover money from the contractors so that part of the deficit could be covered and maybe some of our services be saved from closure.
The other day, as I was walking through the Dressington Avenue side of Ladywell Fields, I saw an old gentleman sawing branches off an oak. As I went closer I noticed that the branches that he was sawing off had all been damaged by the bites of some of those Pitbulls that are often seen being encouraged to jump and chew up by their not-too-clever dog-owners.
Two things that I didn’t know are that trees get infected through the wounds that they receive from the bites and that dogs get infected through splinters in their gums and that’s why there are those rubber balls for dogs to chew (he also had a dog).
So, when the old man became tired of sawing I volunteered to help in, I was then passed the cross saw and had my first sweet taste of guerilla gardening.
As I’m typing this post I’m held in a queue waiting for BT to answer my call, I’ve just been told that if I sign up to something:
…BT will purchase a native sapling
Isn’t that wonderful? Even the bloodsuckers care for the environment now!
Thanks to Cllr Andrew Milton I was a guest at Lewisham Council’s AGM on Wednesday and proud I stand to be a friend of his because I think that he was the only humble opposition Councillor that the Mayor mentioned during his speech. As it was probably meant to be a rebuke then it was an acknowledgment of his effective role in opposition.
In the past I twice had the honor of a mention during the Mayor speech at AGM. Not that my name was pronounced, only strongly alluded to. This year I materialized.
Leaving the Council chamber for the refreshments I found myself heading straight into Mayor Sir Bullock himself, me and him, the first two people to reach the buffet table and nobody else in the room apart from the waiters, a potentially very awkward situation but somehow we managed, I grabbed a glass of white, he opted for a beer, we started to exchange a few words, cordially enough I think. As we chatted, the room started to fill up, so off we went, we both had a lot of people to talk to and personally I had quite a ball.
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 | Max on The handshake |
| Kate on The handshake |
| Kate on Seven songs |
